From air strikes to boots on the ground: US, NATO, and the Islamic State

Posted by Samantha Powell on

This event has been rescheduled to January due to a sudden change in speaker availability. The exact date will be updated shortly.

News reports continue to come rolling in about the horrific acts committed by the group alternatively referred to as the Islamic State, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Regardless of the monicker, the group poses a major threat to security and stability in the Middle East—including NATO-member Turkey—and US interests in the region.

President Obama has promised there will be "no boots on the ground”, but as the US and its allies carry out airstrikes against ISIS strongholds, questions remain. What is the end game? Will airstrikes be enough? If not, what next? And what about Assad? Please join YPFP and our distinguished speakers as we explore these and other questions around the US and NATO responses to the Islamic State.

James J. Townsend Jr. (Jim) is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy, responsible for managing the day-to-day defense relationship between the United States, NATO, the EU and the nations of Europe. Previously, Jim served as the Principal Director of European and NATO Policy (2003-2006), the Director of NATO Policy (2002-2003), and the Director of the Defense Plans Division at the US Mission to NATO in Brussels, Belgium (1998-2002). Before beginning his tour at NATO, Mr. Townsend served for eight years (1990-1998) as Deputy Director of European Policy, where he played a pivotal role in NATO enlargement and building new relations between the US and the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern Europe.

Ambassador Frederic C. Hof is a senior fellow in the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. He came to the Atlantic Council after a career as a US Army officer, a private sector CEO, and a Department of State diplomat. He is a Vietnam veteran and much of his professional life has centered on the Middle East. As a military officer he served on the commission that investigated the 1983 bombing of the US Marine Corps headquarters at Beirut International Airport and drafted key parts of the commission’s report. While in the private sector he took a leave of absence in 2001 to serve as chief of staff of the Sharm el-Sheikh Fact Finding Commission, headed by former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, and was the principal drafter of the Commission’s report. In the Department of State from 2009 to 2012 he took the lead in an effort to mediate Syrian-Israeli peace and was given the rank of ambassador in his capacity as special advisor to the secretary of state for transition in Syria. Ambassador Hof also oversaw efforts to reconcile conflicting Israeli and Lebanese exclusive economic zone claims. He is a graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and the Naval Postgraduate School. Ambassador Hof is the author of two works on Middle Eastern boundary issues. Among his military decorations is the Purple Heart.